The financial planning & analysis (FP&A) function is the part of the CFO office that provides actionable insights to drive long-term value creation. It accomplishes this through decision support, capital allocation and performance management.

Hiring managers expect FP&A professionals to have both hard skills, such as traditional finance and accounting expertise and technology proficiency, and soft skills, such as communication and business partnering.

Below is a closer look at 10 skills FP&A professionals need to excel.

Integrated Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting

Sixty-two percent of CFOs are seeing more demand for insights from financial data, according to Accenture’s Making finance the predictive powerhouse report. To keep up with the demand for insights, FP&A teams must bring agility and efficiency to their planning, budgeting and forecasting, so they can spend more time generating insights and less time preparing data.

Leading FP&A teams use integrated planning to connect long-term strategy to medium- and short-term operational activities, financial performance and risk framework. They facilitate the budgeting process to ensure accountability for enacting the plan and transparency in activities. Additionally, they’re able to create forecasts on demand that provide accurate assessments of expected performance.

Some FP&A activities related to integrated planning, budgeting and forecasting include:

• Implementing rolling forecasts and driver-based forecasts to maintain a future focus on the most important aspects of the business.
• Running risk assessments via what-if scenarios to assess potential financial outcomes and consider contingency plans.
• Performing variance analysis and mid-year updates with resource reallocation to drive accountability.

Management Reporting

FP&A professionals bridge financial data and business strategies to provide actionable insights. One way they accomplish this is through management reporting — delivering the right information to the right person at the right time in the right format.

FP&A professionals must understand their business partners’ needs to provide them with relevant information. They must also know how to use tools to deliver reports efficiently. In fact, the 2025 AFP FP&A Benchmarking Survey Report found that 86% of typical FP&A manager job descriptions list business intelligence, reporting and analytical tools — all used to help FP&A prepare to interact with business partners through reporting.

Some FP&A leading practices related to management reporting include:

• Delivering relevant, accurate and timely reporting with key insights and effective visualizations.
• Reviewing report usage and utility periodically for relevance.
• Developing self-service reporting for business partners to access as needed.

Financial Analysis

Financial analysis is at the heart of what FP&A does; it is the process of evaluating a company's financial health and performance. It helps answer three key questions about the business: what happened, what does it mean and what do we do next? With the answers to these questions, FP&A helps optimize the use of capital and resources.

Financial analysis is a priority for teams looking to expand, especially at smaller companies. The 2024 AFP FP&A Benchmarking Survey Report found that if FP&A teams had additional staff, they would focus on financial analysis.

Leading FP&A professionals apply their financial expertise and business understanding through financial modeling, pro formas and analysis. They collaborate with the business to build business cases and consider investments as part of a company portfolio, diversifying risk and needs across the enterprise.

Some FP&A tasks related to financial analysis include:

• Examining performance, identifying areas of risk and opportunity, and making recommendations to finance and operations leadership for improvements.
• Preparing and maintaining financial models and tools.
• Applying financial and economic concepts, including financial modeling, economic analysis, cash flow (DCF), profitability, earnings, balance sheet, taxes, financial ratios, alignment to KPIs, RO/ROIC/NPV/IRR, customer lifetime value, churn rate, cost of capital benchmarks, market analysis and strategic analysis.

Data Analysis

The use of data-driven decisions within organizations is increasing rapidly, and the ability to connect operational data sources into financial systems extends the reach and visibility of finance into the business.

Data analysis is distinct from financial analysis in that the former encompasses a wide range of data from multiple aspects of a business while the latter focuses on a company’s financial metrics. Data analysis enables FP&A professionals to identify trends and patterns that go beyond financial statements.

Leading FP&A professionals use data analysis to support forward-looking activity and advise on potential actions to influence future business performance. Advanced technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and statistical algorithms, can help improve data analysis.

Some FP&A tasks related to data analysis include:

• Spotting trends that could impact future performance.
• Tracking and visualizing key performance indicators (KPIs) using dashboards and reports.
• Connecting operational data to financial statements to improve the forecasting of financial outcomes.

Data Management

Effective data management is critical to the effectiveness of FP&A technology. It impacts process efficiency, output quality and security. Often, the responsibility of data management belongs to FP&A. Nearly half of organizations rely primarily on finance to collect and manage data used in analyses, according to the FP&A Trends Survey 2024.

Leading FP&A professionals actively manage data so it’s comprehensive, trusted and accessible to stakeholders with minimal effort. They promote policies, standards and best practices for data management. A strategic vision and data governance standard should dictate how data interacts with and moves through all enterprise systems.

Some FP&A tasks related to data management include:

• Validating data sources and aligning them with business rules.
• Gathering and preparing data from various internal and external sources (ERP, CRM, BI tools, etc.).
• Implementing uniform data definitions and reporting structures.

Proficiency in Technological Tools

AFP’s surveys find that technology skills are a priority for FP&A professionals, both from a hiring perspective and from the professional development side. Eighty-three percent of FP&A professionals say they value technology and data skills at least as much as finance skills, and 79% hire for specific technology skills. Additionally, 78% of FP&A professionals are focusing on technology and data for their professional development, according to the AFP 2024 FP&A Benchmarking Survey Report.

Different companies have different technology stacks. Some use multiple “best of breed” tools that each focus on a different capability. Others design their own bespoke tools, such as custom-made ML forecasting. Regardless of the specific tools or systems they use, leading FP&A professionals leverage technology to support faster decision-making and deeper insights.

Some FP&A tasks related to technology proficiency include:

• Reducing manual processes through scripting and workflow automation (e.g., Python, VBA, SQL).
• Leveraging AI and ML to facilitate the analysis and creation of insights.
• Enabling centralized administration and enhancing connectivity among people and data.

Business Acumen

Business acumen is the ability to understand how a business delivers value, its key challenges and priorities, and how finance can help. Leading FP&A professionals recognize that business drivers significantly impact operating performance.

Business drivers refer to the key inputs and activities that drive organizational operations and financial results. They include things like units of production, price of products or services sold, planned sales mix, website traffic and number of retail locations. Different business drivers are critical to different organizations, depending on the stage of the industry lifecycle they’re operating in.

Some FP&A tasks related to business acumen include:

• Developing an understanding of the terminology that the business uses and tailoring communication accordingly.
• Identifying business drivers that have the greatest impact on operating performance.
• Benchmarking against competitors to identify strengths, performance gaps and targets for improvement.

Business Partnering and Communication

One in two organizations seek business partnering as the top skill when hiring FP&A professionals. Without the ability to communicate clearly, even the best analyses won’t drive business decisions. The ability to influence stakeholders is crucial to making FP&A’s insights actionable.

Leading FP&A professionals engage frequently and meaningfully with the business. They’re able to clearly and persuasively articulate insights, without using finance jargon, in both formal and informal settings. Their goal is to become a trusted, credible advisor.

Some FP&A tasks related to business partnering and communication include:

• Engaging with stakeholders to understand their needs and priorities.
• Designing impactful presentations using PowerPoint, BI dashboards and interactive reports to convey data-driven insights in a way that highlights risks and opportunities.
• Building a culture of partnership between finance and the business.

Process Management

With today’s increasing complexity in business operations, FP&A professionals need to streamline workflows to reduce errors and improve agility in decision-making. Process management ensures efficiency, accuracy and consistency. It also enables FP&A to bring its expertise to the business and accelerates agility in other parts of the company.

Leading FP&A professionals understand workflow planning and operational process analysis. They can create connections between financial and operational planning, and they understand where automation can create efficiencies.

Some FP&A tasks related to process management include:

• Applying design thinking principles to ensure finance processes meet finance’s needs in a way that is also manageable for the business and balances rigor and consistency with flexibility.
• Establishing standardized budgeting, forecasting and reporting templates.
• Coordinating inputs from different departments for more accurate projections.

Project Management

FP&A professionals often collaborate with varied stakeholders on projects, so having project management skills is helpful for satisfying stakeholder expectations and building allies throughout the organization. Many routine work efforts that may not be formally considered projects also still benefit from project management practices

Leading FP&A professionals use structured frameworks to plan, execute and monitor initiatives. This enables them to optimize resource allocation and ensure that projects stay in alignment with the organization’s goals and are executed with precision and efficiency.

Some FP&A tasks related to project management include:

• Engaging with stakeholders to establish a shared understanding of the project’s foundational elements.
• Creating a project plan to establish a shared understanding of the project's strategic direction, individual responsibilities and communication protocols.
• Conducting a project team debrief to gather perspectives, examine challenges and identify strategies for process refinement.

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